When comparing Foo IRC vs Konversation, the Slant community recommends Foo IRC for most people. In the question“What are the best IRC clients for Windows?” Foo IRC is ranked 11th while Konversation is ranked 16th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Lots of customization options
Pro Consistent looks and function as a UWP app
Being a Universal Windows Platform app, FooIRC follows the design guidelines set forth by Microsoft, which allows it to look native to the UI. This also means things such as notifications integrate well with the notification center.
Pro Great, simple UI
Pro Plugin support
Pro Supports DCC
Pro Regularly maintained
Konversation is still being updated with new features and bug fixes. Konversation 1.5(released January 15, 2014) has added plenty of major features.
Pro Notifications
Konversation has an OSD(On Screen Display) feature that gives you an overlay message anytime your nick is mentioned. This means you won't be interrupted from your work and reduces the need to keep the window open.
Pro Plenty of useful smaller features
Koversation is full of features to make IRC simpler and smoother. It comes with tools like a channel bookmarker, the ability to insert special characters easily and the "URL catcher", which gives quick access to any links mentioned in the channel.
Pro Quick Buttons
The Quick Buttons features allows you to set a button to any IRC command that you frequently use. It has several defaults such as whois, and kick but a button can be created for any command you need.
Pro Very professional UI design
Cons
Con Costs money
Con Universal Windows Platform app
Con Updating to a new version overwrites configuration settings
Colors, fonts and autojoin behaviors may be customizable, but backing up the settings prior to updating the software is imperative.